


chaos was already here (we didn't close the door)

by maryams



Series: i think you missed a period or two or maybe some common sense [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Confessional Poetry, Poetry, Poetry About Concepts, Poetry About Stuff, Poetry Dump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-05-16 03:17:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 3,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5811649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maryams/pseuds/maryams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>an anthology; 2016</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1/24/16: PART I-- every action has a reaction | or, the homogeneity in natural physics

**Author's Note:**

> it gets bad before it gets better  
> AKA the first couple chapters are early works
> 
> title of anthology is subject to change.
> 
> I also own up to any problematic thinking and poems. They are there. I'm sorry. I'm a work in progress.
> 
> all poems and media are mine. all rights reserved. please ask before using.

a lone hand presses against the world  
and everything stutters. 

\--a moment, please. 

b r o k e n s i g h  
blinkbliink-- 

they thought they knew up from down.  
but then she walked in, that meeting fell through--  
those eyes locked in greeting, in warfare, in love, in dialogue.  
those grades came back, those hearts turned black.  
that wind turned into a storm and drowned someone dead.  
they thought they knew up from down. 

they had much to learn. 

(--in between letters, they fill the pages.  
they think they know how to write (their papers, their stories, their destinies), to calculate;  
they thought they knew their physics and their nature but  
then She rose up, golden and molten,  
and made winter fall, and summer spring. 

they found that, in time, there is much missing.) 

(in the middle, They shake the strings.) 

c h a o s d e s c e n d s  
blinkblink--


	2. 1/24/16: PART II-- quarantine zone ineffective

chaos was already here, we let it in.  
the inextricable pounds of flesh that bind us,  
they look like threads but feel like stab wounds.  
i once heard a story straight from someone's eyes.  
and once, i sold my heart for the highest bidder  
to save a life-- whose, I never knew. 

they danced in the dark, alone and together.  
articulate as they undulate,  
empathize as their bodies harmonize.  
it was the eloquence of their dance,  
the hypnotism of the chance, the possibility.  
they got drunk. wine was their blood instead of water. 

chaos was already here, we didn't close the door.  
mothers and fathers and daughters and sons.  
sisters and brothers and husbands and wives.  
partners and colleagues and acquaintances.  
friends and family.  
you and me.  
you.  
me. 

. . . a pause. 

(we were loud we were quiet  
we crashed together and fell apart  
i think i left my skin on your floor  
i think you left your heart on my mouth  
and you swept the floors  
i bit my lips)

and it's more than love and pain.  
It’s the rush, the curiosity  
That ebbs its way underneath my skin.  
New faces, new days.  
New ways to fall apart (together).

 

we are chaos || chaos are we.


	3. 1/24/16: Einai Kalytero Anthropo Apo Ton Patera Toy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by Peter and Olivia from Fringe during season five. Starts off canon but then branches off into a darker, ambiguous canon-divergent universe.

the world

     took a man with genius in his mind  
and made a sinner on his knees  
     took a boy with chips instead of skin  
and made a heart beat inside his chest  
     took a girl with direction in her eyes  
and made a light die inside

and then,  
     a boy built like a pillar,  
     fell in love.

(and a girl built to save the world, saved herself for once.)

but when,  
     a boy who grew family in his bones  
          (it was inevitable really-- he was a better man than his father, but he was his father's son.)  
     loved a girl whose inherent maternal duty was the whole world  
          (in lieu of just her family)

they kept each other upright.  
until they lost their world (their child).  
and the world outside became too cruel.

\----

afterwards:

a boy with persuasive speech, and persuasive eyes  
made a girl without life in her eyes into a blank weapon.

she followed him to the ends of time.  
he held her face and soothed her heavy soul.

yet,  
     she didn't see the world that she was trying to save was gone.  
     he didn't see that he had no family left to save.


	4. 1/28/16: loved -- not -- lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another Fringe-inspired work because I am trash. This time it's about Peter and his father.

"you are my favorite thing."  
there is nothing but you  
in my empty,  
                    empty,  
heart.

there is nothing but you  
in my fate.

and i--

you.

you make the world inside of me,  
breathe.  
(i never told you but, there is  
a world inside of me.  
it's hidden, buried deep down.  
but it is there.  
a small green tree.  
it sits in the rain.  
it does not grow.  
it does not breathe.)

(until you smile)

and my heart knows only (the memory of) you.  
and me.

it is a fickle thing, my heart.  
it only lights for you, my love.  
it's purpose is you, my world.

i would die for you.  
again. and again.

(poets once dreamt of swimming in the stars.  
stardust and lovelights and forgot-ones  
color them bliss in the stars, they think.  
poets once dreamt that death is home in the stars.  
i am home next to you. i am stardust and lovelights and forgot-ones.)

thank, you.


	5. 1/28/16: i'm glad i committed larceny because it gave me you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still more feels about Peter and Walter because everything is pain and beauty.

we stole our time together.

do not forgive me, for I have sinned. 

I would not forgive myself but  
not for the same reasons that you shouldn't. 

I would not forgive myself because  
you are gone from me. I find  
your left-side lack makes me half--

full of empty, your promise meant nothing.  
in the end.  
there were monsters in our nights, we did not slay. 

but. 

you should not forgive me because  
I loved you.I loved you.Ilovedyou. 

do not forgive me, do not forget me.  
do not let me go. 

\--i forget the rest of my speech.  
we stole our time together.  
do not forgive, for I do not repent. 

(hold on to me and i'll hold on to you.)


	6. 2/1/16: you've become a cautionary tale in my home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> inspired by Wanheda Clarke from The 100

sir, there's a girl in the woods.  
i don't know if she's a threat -  
she looked like a girl, but i swear,  
my god, her eyes looked like hell -  
or not but, sir - 

there's a girl in the woods.  
she's alone out there.  
she's scared out there.  
she'll die out there.  
we need to save her. 

. . . "that girl you saw -  
she commanded death.  
she ruled the living.  
you can't do both.  
there's a war in her head. 

she stormed the battlefield  
but it made a home in her. 

we can't save someone from  
an enemy we can't see. 

leave her in the woods."


	7. 2/3/16: when you walked away the possibilities were endless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> because i'm bellarke trash.

heavy is her head that wears the crown  
he told her.

\-- she doesn't walk amonst her subjects anymore.  
she doesn't recognize them anymore.  
she's the queen of the dead, now,  
and she's lost to their whispers.  
they fill her head. 

she's heavy with the bodies on her shoulders.  
she carries them with her through the woods.

this is her odyssey. 

she walks with the dead and  
lets their troubled souls run rampant on her mind. 

they call her wanheda. 

they hunt wanheda.  
they want to kill wanheda.  
wanheda's not alive anymore --

she's careful not to let it snap her neck  
she grits her teeth and walks home.


	8. 2/3/16: something weary grows here

maybe, one day, some day.   
around these parts, dreams grow in spades and  
reality has yet to be break the surface.   
yet, there's a girl in the house on the hill   
and she vowed never to break her mother's back, to build herself a spine.  
maybe, one day-- no --some day, she knows she'll wed the two.

(she never wanted to be a priest  
or sacriligeous   
or damned-- but she had burned her  
mantel and  
ran until she couldn't feel the flames at her heels--  
or cowardly. So she turned around and faces the woods.)


	9. 2/5/16: the unofficial laws of poetry dont apply here

often, things don't start   
at the beginning.  
I/She start(s) at the end. 

poets write themselves bitter.  
so i am bitter. I am acid.   
but She's a biter, She's better after she blisters. 

these things i thought i knew,   
these things i learned i forgot,  
these things i made from pictures,  
these things i wrote a thousand words for. 

they don't carve themselves into her bones.  
they don't fool her enamored.   
they don't twist her open.   
i am open, enamored and cracked. 

foggy faces freckled   
the view outside the window.   
hazy haunts harrowed   
at her spine.

they commanded, "write."   
and I was.


	10. 2/9/16: cleaning day was yesterday

you see, there was this-- bleeding _thing_ that lived in my closet.  
it was angry red, angry broken, angrily beating.  
Dear god, the mess it made.  
It crawled into my mouth, my lungs, my stomach  
and eroded everything, burned everything  
when I looked at it.  
It was poison, toxin, acid, vile.  
It shoved into my head and pushed  
my world onto its back.  
It was violent, vengeful, voracious.  
I swore, oh my god, how I swore I would kill it.

but, i cut myself opening the closet today.  
      (the skin torn open  
       felt like my veins were ripped out  
       felt fire burning each cell  
       blood violently crashed like waves)

you see, i _had_ to clean the house today.  
     (it was disgusting-- a right mess.  
      clothes desecrated the floor.  
      vile, vile dust vandalized the shelves.  
      smudges on the mirror made me look demonic.  
      the stains on the walls violated my peace of mind.  
      it smelled putrid, looked horrendous.  
      i was ashamed of it, this filth that defiled my sanctuary.)

so I took a mop and soap to it  
and scrubbed the floors pristine, virginal.

~~(it's like you were never there.)~~

 


	11. 2/13/16: i started talking to ghosts that looked like you (but i'm okay)

a stranger walks by,  
he is smiles radiant, that  
still run through my blood like ambrosia.  
he is ambrosia  
for a wound that is no longer  
open, alcohol for a drunk  
that is no longer intoxicated.   
he is only a paper rose,  
a piece of beauty,  
nothing like it was once before. 

a stranger keeps on walking.


	12. 2/16/16: form fits function

you are made, piece by piece,  
in a factory, of broken bonds.

  
there's something beating,  
something alive around you,  
     badum   
                  badum   
it looks like the bigger picture,  
it looks something familiar,  
something just beyond your grasp.   
but nonetheless, it's comfort in   
a war drum, solace in a drill run.

  
it sets the tempo to your march,  
sets the stage for your launch.   
and when he falls into your arms,  
a little broken, too, it beats a  
salsa while you dance, faster and faster.

together, you feel a heat bind you,   
your skin against his, one. ephemerally.  
until the song ends, and you fall apart,  
and the bonds break, and you're left with  
a hole shaped like him.

the beating thing slows its pulse.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spoiler alert: it's actually about enzymatic reactions and i can't write anything happy


	13. 5/13/16: the weight of time (only feels heavy when you've lost it)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> inspired by [samurai death poetry](http://www.samurai-archives.com/deathq.html)

the weight of fall  
slips down my body,  
like leaves, dying.

the weight of winter  
stomps on my chest,  
makes it hard to breathe, choked.

the weight of spring  
drags behind my heels,  
slowly grasping at the light, crazed. 

the weight of summer  
balloons off of the ground, freed.

i am on the balloon. 

i fly off of the ground.  
i am weightless.  
i am timeless.


	14. 5/21/16: ♩ // | ♩

tonight, your hands pressed love under my skin,  
found sanctuary in the valleys of my body, you  
kissed the white noise in my mind, made it  
rattle throughout my bones. for a moment,  
the world crumbled around, lay in siege,  
as you conquered, left my body aflame  
and aching for more; like a newsreel,  
imprinted with the images of how  
i should feel, blissfully empty.  
in a blink, our gasps mixed  
like whisky and i was drunk;  
yet, i consented to every  
move you made, every  
promise you spoke  
into my skin,  
foolishly.  
now all i  
have are  
the  
m  
 e  
   m  
      o  
          r  
               i  
                      e  
                                  s


	15. 5/21/16: scab picker

prelude: i foolishly thought   
that if we pressed  
our bodies closer  
we'd erase   
the oceans between us.

i.  
morning. play.   
white noise air,  
straight jacket blankets,  
warm, throbbing flesh  
on top of me, heavy.  
eyes open and  
i struggle to breathe.

you stir next to me  
and tell me the   
morning air lightens your soul.

ii.   
we met sally and john  
for lunch at the cafe  
and they laughed  
and we laughed and  
i think i laughed  
i think i sounded happy  
i think my laugh matched the   
lightness of the air  
like my smile was tailored  
to match the decor and  
you put your arm around me  
and i remembered when   
you said you wished i  
would stop talking so  
i keep laughing and  
sarah and josh keep  
talking in white teeth smiles  
and the air seemed to slip  
easily through their words  
and seemed to coagulate  
in the pit of my stomach,   
solid like a kidney stone.

iii.   
"you never think about me! it's always about you!"  
\--"i feel like you never hear me."  
"you always blame me. you never apologize."  
\--"i feel like the only one here."  
"you're never here, here. you're here, but you're never _here_. i'm not good enough for you."  
\--"i don't know how to talk to you."

  
"being with you is _hard_."  
\--"..."

  
"some days i don't know why i'm still here."  
\--"..."

"i'm going to bed. we'll talk in the morning."

 

  
\--"i don't know why i'm here, too."

iv.   
there's this crack in the ceiling--  
the light twists around it. the moonlight.   
i stare at it during the night.   
i feel the moonlight land on my chest.  
it burns. like revelation. like truth.   
like purity. like a whisper of  
forgiveness i crack. i let my shame  
speak. it sounds like you. and your  
gritty snores next to me. and   
the empty space between us.

it looks like me turning over.  
feeling the sheets tangle around me.  
wrapping my arms around you.  
pressing my mouth against the skin  
of the lion's back.

i am born again in the stomach of the night.  
the monster. it lets out a breath.

a wind makes goosebumps rise on my skin.

v.   
morning. unpause.  
you press your body closer  
to mine, and press apologies  
into my skin, until they bruise,  
and i compact my body, let  
myself be engulfed like  
a speck of sand in the   
midst of a storm.

(epilogue:  
i was not drowned, i broke the surface  
in a new beach.

i felt the sun blanket my skin and   
the fresh air inflate my lungs.   
it was a new world, in this new bed.)


	16. 6/2/16: i seek peace but the language i don't understand

disclaimer: the house of religion resides in my soul.  
it looks like white haired, dark lipped, close eyed and curious mind.   
it whispers prayers in my mouth and feeds me doubt in my ears.

i wish to find peace.

there were white lessons carved in my skin that bled red,   
and green thoughts that rattled against the   
bones that bound my soul in its cage and they  
screamed and they screamed white and they raged blue.

there was no peace where i looked.

"history repeats itself" they say  
but how can it repeat when it seems new?  
turn of the millenia, turn of the page,   
new chapters, new words--  
nothing is ever the same.

rather

it's the people that repeat, like prayers.   
the same words, the same fear, love,  
passed down from generation to generation.

(i used to play telephone--  
like history, the words were never exactly the same)

and i find that  
wherever i search for peace,   
the answers are the same. but the faces are new.

history repeats itself. they say.

history is wrong. i am not at peace. 


	17. 6/26/16: woman song

women are not chains  
we are not binding, or bound,   
to yours, or yours,   
or his, or hers.

the world is shown to us   
in boxes-- pixels, i think--  
and now we try to fit  
everything into boxes.

my screen is blank.

when my screen dies,  
i hiss and growl,  
fire and bones and blood,  
leak out of my mouth  
and into my keys--  
they look like words,   
they look like swords.

i wear daggers on my skin.

i decree.

i do not belong in a box,  
we do not belong in box,  
because i am woman does not mean  
i owe you anything.  
i am not chained, i will not chain.  
i will burn and melt these metal strings,  
pull the ones around my heart,   
and make a cat's cradle in my hands.

see what you want to see.

i birth fragments of my soul, the world,  
i hold them in my hand, in string,  
i create, i feel, i live.

pull the cat's cradle in my hands.  
it only changes shape.

i am amorphous, unknown.

and that is all the trouble.

 


	18. 7/1/16: empty rooms never feel as full as when they are left

acetone smoke fills my nose and i see,  
dim lights and old ceiling fans,  
for the last time-  
these walls drip into my mouth   
and i swallowed the stories  
they whispered late at night.

there are people in the carpets,  
in the wrappers and empty mugs.  
they are tiny. they are shiny.  
for now.

but these walls get washed.  
but these mugs get washed.  
but these hearts get washed.

this life that i wore like a stain  
is now over.

this life that i put in walls and mugs  
is now sold.

(these whispers turn to screams  
as the empty in these rooms grow  
and i see time move through these halls  
like i ran with childish wind--  
a whisp of nostalgia disintegrating  
as i sob)

there is a house in my heart;  
there is a heart in my house  
and _leaving just feels wrong_ \--

acetone, blankets, chips,   
TV, mugs, cake, pets, books

smiles, tears,   
laughs, screams,  
hugs, slaps,  
triumph, turmoil

this is the screaming pile in the empty  
of my house.  
it is everything past and future all at once.  
all the memories and futures.  
all i knew and know.

and i turn off the light  
and walk into darkness,

 

away, terrified but go I must.


	19. 7/4/16: I. sometimes sadness, jagged and imperfect, is the only one who can walk besides us

sometimes, with sadness,  
all that is left is not  
                             to share it  
but rather, simply,  
                             to bear it

(for it does not exist  
anymore  
                             to be validated--  
                             to be absolved--  
but rather to be  
                             felt.  
                             lived.

sometimes, with sadness,  
all that is left is  
                              life.)

  
and it, too, will run its course


	20. 7/4/16: II. untitled

there are no words anymore.  
just memories.  
ghosts that talk over each other.

they look like sadness.

there are no embraces anymore.  
just mourning.  
just silence, heavy and cold, alone above a grave.

it looks like grief.

there are no tears anymore.  
just endurance.  
the way the halls shift and breathe.  
the way the sky sighs and crawls.  
the way familiar things turn to dust.

i think they call it remembrance.  
it feels stagnant.


	21. 7/4/16: III. they told me to stop and smell the roses and i never started again

rain, rain, go away  
come again another day.

happy, happy, wait for me  
this storm has yet to leave.


	22. 7/4/16: IV. epilogue | housemourning party

these are our last days like this

i will miss you, my friend  
you have done me well

but what are we, if not  
a never-ending series of   
these 'last days'

we are always in flux  
we are never the same

thank you for our time, then  
it was time well spent  
you have done me better than most

i carry you in the shapes that i will take,  
in the edges and curves and corners and crevices  
that i will form,   
like i had mapped yours, when the time was ours


	23. 8/13/16: my hands are trees

there is something inherently   
ugly  
in words

something that makes you  
want to turn your gaze,  
turn your page, away--  
something piles in your throat  
and they say  
that its the words you need to say

(funny how the other thing  
that piles in your throat  
is vomit)

there is something inherently  
clumsy  
in words

something that does not bounce  
does not dance, or move  
the way   
the people do

(instead, stumble and slur  
and get caught in between  
yellowed, drunken, gnawed, teeth)

there is something inherently  
violent   
in words

somethings that looks like  
knives and blood,  
sharp lines and empty spaces--  
this ink does not breathe   
like i do

(yet it bleeds   
like i do.)

there is something inherent--  
about words. 

something that does not sing to me like  
the violin does  
something that does enthrall me like  
the dance does  
something does not hypnotize me like  
the art does  
something that does not   
capture my eyes in a love song hurricane

rather;  
words  
intoxicate  
me

i  
am  
high

do  
not  
look  
at  
my  
shame

read it.


	24. 8/19/16: shower thoughts

my words will never be great

but i hope that they bring solace  
to someone in the dark

there is no sadness in my poems  
it resides in my bones

my poems are not alive  
they are weapons in the wrong hands

(mine)

my verses do not breathe  
but i hope they bring tears to your eyes  
and open a door that has been closed   
too long

\--some days, i feel like writing is  
stepping into dirty underwear.   
some days, i remember what it is like  
to write, the power in telling--

there is no sadness here, i say  
there is just a story  
of how there is more than sadness,  
there is The After.   
and what it holds for you.

if there is a sign you are looking for,  
this is it.   
there is more. you are more. 

let me tell you a story.   
sit and listen for a while.


	25. 11/26/16: memories do not burn but i do when i think of how different things are now

and i scream, damn,  
these monsters inside of me  
burning flowers,  
break my home   
and i drown. 

i miss my friends,  
i miss my songs,   
i miss my home. 

homesickness plagues those with homes  
i have houses and rooms  
and it's not the places but   
the ghosts who gave a house  
its home   
and its those ghosts  
i befriend that gave me shelter

they're gone

it comforts me that  
their voices still rattle in my head   
echoes and promises broken  
stories and bonds abandoned  
but we were here   
we were a moment in time   
we will always have that 

(because the monsters raged  
and i spilled words instead of blood  
and these wounds do not mend  
because stitches look like apologies  
and i burned hopes   
with the flowers that died in winter  
i miss my home  
because i'm cold and homeless   
without shelter,  
without friends.)

\--memories do not burn but i do when i think of how different things are now


	26. 11/27/16: we played hide and seek in each others bodies and got scared of what we found

tonight, your hands sought refuge under my skin,  
found sanctuary in the valleys of my body, you  
kissed the white noise in my mind, made it  
silent throughout my bones. for a moment,   
the world crumbled around, lay in pieces,  
as you rampaged, fought your war in my body   
and i let you, grateful; like a canvas,  
imprinted with someone else's thoughts  
i felt relief, blissfully empty.  
in a blink, our gasps mixed  
like whisky and i was drunk;  
yet, i consented to every  
move you made, every   
plea you pressed  
into my skin,   
desperately.   
now all i  
have is  
the   
m  
e  
m  
o  
r  
y


	27. 12/29/16: i jumped into you blind and opened my eyes

do you know what pain is?

do you know what love is?

he thought they looked the same  
but he was looking at her

she thought they didn't exist on the same plane  
but she was looking in the mirror

in retrospect  
everything exists at once   
and we were a moment spent in darkness

i know now


	28. 12/29/16: you might as well pay for the show since you're talking so loudly

i want to write poetry  
but i am not a moment  
of feeling, of regret, of love  
i am a lifetime of choices  
that led me here  
and this is what i have to say:

the world cannot fit me inside  
of black lines and pixel boxes  
i fall out, fickle and mischevous,  
amorphous and unbounded,  
with a tongue sharper than the knife  
you want me under 

watch me build a box for you to sit in  
and watch me.

did you get that?

**Author's Note:**

> all poems and media are mine. all rights reserved. please ask before using.


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